But instead of connecting, her mother stonewalled. She withdrew all attention - completely ignoring her.
Without a word nor look at her kid in her cart, she leisurely pushed it up the aisle and down the next, perusing the shelves over her toddler’s head, seemingly deaf and blind to the emotional anguish of the child before her.
Why stonewall your child, I wondered? The stupor of prescription drugs? A bad day? Force of habit? Lack of connecting skills?
The sad result is that instead of learning that her mother is a safe haven when she's upset - available to her for connection and emotional regulation - this kid is learning that despite her furious efforts and expression of pain, her mom just isn’t there.
Stonewalling is the opposite of love - and it hurts. Because no matter how old we are - inside we’re just like that little girl.
Young humans need to connect - especially when we're upset - or our brain reacts as if we’re going to die. But safe connection when we're kids doesn’t always happen, and so we learn different ways to cope with the unsafe connection (or lack of connection) we get from the adults around us.
Some of us learn to cope by withdrawing our connecting energy. I call these folks Turtles. Others react with an outward connecting energy, and perhaps even go on the attack. I call those people T-Rexes. Neither strategy is good nor bad, but both can cause problems in our grown-up relationships. Significantly, Turtles and T-Rexes are drawn to and often end up together, setting the stage for repeating frustrating conflict!
The good news is that you're no longer small. You can learn proven strategies that end the cycles of frustration and bring back fulfilling connection.
It just doesn’t have to be so hard, and there's a gentle way to begin to make it easier.
